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"...NATO/US troops in Ukraine..." Do you have a source for that? Don't forget, "On June 1, 1996, Ukraine became a non-nuclear nation, sending the last of the

"...NATO/US troops in Ukraine..." Do you have a source for that? Don't forget, "On June 1, 1996, Ukraine became a non-nuclear nation, sending the last of the 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads it had inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia for dismantling. Ukraine had committed to this by signing the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in January 1994." That was certainly a stupid idea.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Do you have a source for that? US and other Western troops (not NATO per se, though I think all were NATO members) were openly present in Ukraine training the Ukraine military up until shortly before the recent Russian escalation of their long-running invasion of Ukraine (they were pulled out to avoid getting caught up in direct combat with Russia in the event of an invasion.) EDIT: if you need a source, here's an article on the US/UK trainers being withdrawn: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pull-military-trainers-out-of-ukraine-with-russian-attack-possible-any-day-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pul...
- mcguire 5y ago
  Thank you!
- landemva 5y ago
  Biden's withdraw of US troops in February was the green light for Russia to walk in.
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    Weren’t there less than 200 US troops and Russia had already amassed at the border of Ukraine? Seems like it was going to happen regardless since the removal of US troops was because of the Russian build-up and not the other way around.
lsllc 5y ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/pentagon-orders-departure-of-us-troops-in-ukraine.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/pentagon-orders-departure-of...
BitwiseFool 5y ago
It's a little more complicated than that. Ukraine did not have the ability to use any of those nuclear weapons because they never had the launch codes. They were basically stationed in Ukraine but were still under Moscow's control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link A rough analogy would be this, if the United States broke apart South Dakota would have hundreds of nuclear warheads but the South Dakotan Governor / State National Guard would not be able to use them because they never had the ability in the first place.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  And they lacked the knowledge and infrastructure to maintain or modify them. And Russia didn't want them to have them and knew their exact locations. And NATO and the rest of the world saw Ukraine as a violation of the non-proliferation treaty and didn't want them to have them.
  - Sylamore 5y ago
    I suspect they had the knowledge, considering Ukraine was where one of their early nuclear research facilities were - they were able to reproduce early fission experiments and made a proposal to leverage the ability in bombs in 1940 but were dismissed by nuclear experts in Moscow[0]. And it was Ukrainian's who worked to reverse engineer the V2 rockets post WWII and turned it into the rocket design that put Sputnik into space[1]. [0] - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ukraine-and-soviet-nuclear-history https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ukraine-and-soviet-... [1] - https://euromaidanpress.com/2021/07/26/how-ukraine-wants-to-make-its-space-industry-great-again/ https://euromaidanpress.com/2021/07/26/how-ukraine-wants-to-...
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  If only they tried 00000000...
- mcguire 5y ago
  In 25 years? Ukraine is a country with a population of 44,000,000 not that much smaller than the UK or France; South Dakota has a population of 900,000. Would Russia have recovered them if Ukraine did not want to relinquish them? Maybe, but in the 1990s they were in very bad shape, and before 2004 (and between 2010 and 2014) Ukraine was under a pro-Russian government. The point here is that, at this point, if any country is under the illusion that it does not need nuclear weapons to maintain its independent existence, they probably deserve to be absorbed by their neighbors.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
>That was certainly a stupid idea. It is not at all clear that it was a stupid idea. The nukes were useless because Russia had all of the access codes and the ICBMS had a minimum range of 5000 km. They could hit the USA but couldn't be aimed at Russia. The rest were disabled and Ukraine didn't have a nuclear weapons program or ability to repair them. If they tried to keep them, they could have faced retaliation or attack from Russia, the United States, and other NATO allies.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Do you have a source for that? US and other Western troops (not NATO per se, though I think all were NATO members) were openly present in Ukraine training the Ukraine military up until shortly before the recent Russian escalation of their long-running invasion of Ukraine (they were pulled out to avoid getting caught up in direct combat with Russia in the event of an invasion.) EDIT: if you need a source, here's an article on the US/UK trainers being withdrawn: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pull-military-trainers-out-of-ukraine-with-russian-attack-possible-any-day-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pul...

mcguire 5y ago
Thank you!
landemva 5y ago
Biden's withdraw of US troops in February was the green light for Russia to walk in.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  Weren’t there less than 200 US troops and Russia had already amassed at the border of Ukraine? Seems like it was going to happen regardless since the removal of US troops was because of the Russian build-up and not the other way around.

lsllc 5y ago

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/pentagon-orders-departure-of-us-troops-in-ukraine.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/pentagon-orders-departure-of...

BitwiseFool 5y ago

It's a little more complicated than that. Ukraine did not have the ability to use any of those nuclear weapons because they never had the launch codes. They were basically stationed in Ukraine but were still under Moscow's control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link A rough analogy would be this, if the United States broke apart South Dakota would have hundreds of nuclear warheads but the South Dakotan Governor / State National Guard would not be able to use them because they never had the ability in the first place.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
And they lacked the knowledge and infrastructure to maintain or modify them. And Russia didn't want them to have them and knew their exact locations. And NATO and the rest of the world saw Ukraine as a violation of the non-proliferation treaty and didn't want them to have them.
- Sylamore 5y ago
  I suspect they had the knowledge, considering Ukraine was where one of their early nuclear research facilities were - they were able to reproduce early fission experiments and made a proposal to leverage the ability in bombs in 1940 but were dismissed by nuclear experts in Moscow[0]. And it was Ukrainian's who worked to reverse engineer the V2 rockets post WWII and turned it into the rocket design that put Sputnik into space[1]. [0] - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ukraine-and-soviet-nuclear-history https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ukraine-and-soviet-... [1] - https://euromaidanpress.com/2021/07/26/how-ukraine-wants-to-make-its-space-industry-great-again/ https://euromaidanpress.com/2021/07/26/how-ukraine-wants-to-...
KptMarchewa 5y ago
If only they tried 00000000...
mcguire 5y ago
In 25 years? Ukraine is a country with a population of 44,000,000 not that much smaller than the UK or France; South Dakota has a population of 900,000. Would Russia have recovered them if Ukraine did not want to relinquish them? Maybe, but in the 1990s they were in very bad shape, and before 2004 (and between 2010 and 2014) Ukraine was under a pro-Russian government. The point here is that, at this point, if any country is under the illusion that it does not need nuclear weapons to maintain its independent existence, they probably deserve to be absorbed by their neighbors.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

>That was certainly a stupid idea. It is not at all clear that it was a stupid idea. The nukes were useless because Russia had all of the access codes and the ICBMS had a minimum range of 5000 km. They could hit the USA but couldn't be aimed at Russia. The rest were disabled and Ukraine didn't have a nuclear weapons program or ability to repair them. If they tried to keep them, they could have faced retaliation or attack from Russia, the United States, and other NATO allies.